


Skip a Beat

by lossie



Series: Papashi [1]
Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen, Kidnapping, POV Hatake Kakashi, Papa Kakashi, Papashi, Papashi to the rescue, Parent Hatake Kakashi, right in the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 09:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13971921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lossie/pseuds/lossie
Summary: Sarada gets kidnapped and Kakashi is there to save the day.





	Skip a Beat

**Author's Note:**

> By popular demand I got my shit together and actually managed to finish it. I feel a bit like roadkill (a painful period and a cold are not a good combo), but I’m somehow in a very happy place mentally. The power of family fluff, amirite? Also, as you can see, I will be writing more stories for this AU, since we do need more Papashi in our lives. 
> 
> If you have any suggestions/questions/thoughts regarding this AU, feel free to share ;)
> 
> Special shout-out to @zeppelinstangerine, @la-moonlight-lily and @lil-ol-shipper on tumblr – you are the sweetest ever!

Councilman Nobu was droning on about the village budget with the enthusiasm of a particularly bored weather forecaster, his voice so void of emotion that it was a true miracle nobody has fallen asleep yet. The man was in his nineties, but being a walking fossil didn’t necessarily mean that he had to talk as if he was already dead. Unfortunately, Kakashi had a sneaky suspicion that the torture would continue throughout the morning and into the late afternoon. Even though the council met once a week, the meetings had a tendency to last for hours on end. Today they were two hours behind schedule due to Kakashi’s impromptu videoconference with Gaara regarding some sort of inconsistency in Konoha’s renewed trade agreement with Suna.  
  
Simply put, it was one of those days when Kakashi couldn’t wait to pass the mantle of Hokagedom to Naruto. The room the council was in lacked windows for security reasons, so he wasn’t even able to amuse himself with cloud watching or fantasizing about what he would rather do with his time on such a fine spring day. The distraction would have been greatly appreciated. Not that Kakashi couldn’t and wasn’t currently making plans for when he was finally free of the council’s clutches. It would have been far more enjoyable if Kakashi didn’t have to look at Nobu-san’s wrinkled face the entire time while pretending that he was in fact emotionally invested in the subject matter. Still, thoughts of his family never failed to make forget where he was, at least for a moment. Truth be told, he has been entraining the idea of picking Sarada from the Academy with the dogs since the moment he dropped her off this morning. They could maybe even convince Sakura to join them for a walk, if she was feeling up to the task, and then they could try to secure a table at one of their favourite restaurants just for the heck of it – all of it in an effort to salvage a bit of joy in the otherwise boring and uneventful day.  
  
The door to the council chamber opened suddenly, admitting a rather dishevelled Yamato into the room and disrupting Kakashi’s idle musings. He was immediately out of his seat and on high alert. He knew his friend long and well enough to understand that something dire must have happened for him to break protocol and to be so visibly shaken.  
  
However the council lacked their leader’s insight. Councilman Ikari, another ancient individual who was also overly fond of rules, levelled the ANBU Captain with a withering glare.  
  
“What is the meaning of this? You have no right to...!”  
  
“I apologize, but this takes precedence,” Yamato interrupted hastily before the man could finish speaking. “Uchiha Sarada has been reported missing.”  
  
Kakashi could feel his heart skip a beat at those words. The room around him froze for a few long seconds before it erupted into activity, yet he found himself unable to move. Time seemed to slow down and Kakashi found himself in a sort of limbo as the reality of the situation slowly but surely sunk in. Then, between one breath and another, the sensation returned to his body. He swore he could hear the rush of blood in his ears and the low hum of his chakra as it stirred within his coils in what he could easily identify as simmering rage.  
  
Without saying a word, he strode out of the room with Yamato and most of the council following close behind. As he predicted, his office was already full of people who were busy arguing and shouting at each other. However, Kakashi’s eyes were only for Sakura.  
  
His wife, her face ghostly white, rushed to him the moment he entered and he embraced her as tightly as her protruding stomach would allow him.  
  
“Oh, Kashi,” she whimpered into his neck before he felt her tears soak into the material of his mask. Sakura was one of the strongest people he knew and she wasn’t prone to public displays of emotion, but Kakashi understood her need to cry. He himself was feeling as if the world itself was about to come crumbling down on his head.  
  
“Hokage-sama...?” Shikamaru’s uncharacteristically tentative voice brought Kakashi back to the present. He briefly pressed his lips against Sakura’s temple before focusing his attention on his advisor. “The Beginners class was scheduled to take place outside, near the training grounds. Yuki-san, Sarada’s sensei, noticed the girl was  missing shortly before they were supposed to report back to the Academy. The abduction was reported immediately afterwards, but I’m afraid we are uncertain when it happened.”  
  
Kakashi could feel something within him snap.  
  
To be perfectly honest, he couldn’t remember if he has ever been this angry before in his life. The instantaneous nature of his ire was a novel experience as well. He was acutely aware that the air around him was now sizzling with violent bursts of his chakra and that his killing intent was probably potent enough to make grown men weep, as evidenced by the palatable tension in the room and how people seemed to flinch away from him, but at this point he was too furious to care.

“What do you mean by _uncertain when it happened_?” He demanded, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “She is supposed to be under _ANBU surveillance_! Where were the imbeciles entrusted with her safety?!”  
  
The men and women on Sarada’s Protection Squad were supposed to be hand-picked and the best of the best – ‘supposed’ being the key word here.  
  
The Nara swallowed nervously. “They were apparently incapacitated by the culprits, sir.”  
  
“Splendid. And then?”  
  
“Well, um...”  
  
“Out with it!” Kakashi barked out impatiently, making most of the occupants of the room jump.  
  
“My team was notified. When we arrived at the scene, we found this,” said Yamato, presenting Kakashi with Sarada’s favourite jacket, the red one with a dog on the back he had helped her put on a few hours ago, and a broken pair of red-rimmed glasses. Both items were splattered with the girl’s blood. “For what it’s worth, she must have fought back.”  
  
Oh, there was no doubt about it. His little princess had the fiery personality of her mother and a temper to match when provoked. If she felt threatened, her usual response was to lash out, although Kakashi wished she had gone with whomever took her willingly instead. Then again, her kidnappers were just plain stupid if they actually decided to rise their filthy hands against her for whatever reason and, at this point, they were pretty much dead men walking either way.  
  
Giving Sakura one last lingering squeeze, he released her from his embrace and brought his arms up to her face, cradling her wet cheeks between his slightly trembling hands.  
  
“Sweetheart, I will find her. I promise.”  
  
“You would better,” she told him in a tone that brooked no argument before she stepped away, letting Shizune and Ino guide her to the couch so they could examine her. Kakashi knew that she shouldn’t be put in stressful situations when her due date was still a solid month away and he hoped it wouldn’t lead to a premature birth. It was, admittedly, the last thing they needed right now.  
  
“Yamato, Naruto, Sai, you’re with me,” he said as he quickly bit his thumb in order to summon his pack. They appeared in a poof of smoke a second later. Pakkun took one sniff of the air and snarled, the reaction echoed by the rest of the dogs.  
  
“What happened to the pup?”  
  
“Taken. Unknown culprits. I need you to track her for me.”  
  
“No problem, boss,” Bull informed him, his huge body taunt with tension. He was Sarada’s favourite and the feeling was mutual. “Everything for the pup.”  
  
Each of the dogs took turns sniffing at Sarada’s jacket before they left in pursuit of her trail, their barking and howls a haunting sign of their own anger.  
  
“Kakashi-sama, I don’t think it’s wise for you...” Sai spoke for the first time after a brief moment of silence, but Kakashi had a pretty good idea what the boy was going to say and he had no patience left to listen to him or any desire to delegate the search for his little girl to someone else. The mere thought of staying cooped in the village while she was Kami knows where, probably scared witless, made him physically ill. He wouldn’t have been able to sit still, even if he knew he was supposed to do so.  
  
“My decision is final,” he announced in case anyone was under the illusion that he was going to follow protocol by sitting on his ass while others did his biding.  
  
“You got it, Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto informed him with a feral grin, apparently in complete agreement with Kakashi’s hands-on approach to the problem. “We’ll get her back in no time, amirite guys?”  
  
Both Yamato and Sai nodded swiftly.  
  
The pack reported back with good news shortly afterwards. Before more protests regarding his departure could be voiced, Kakashi took off at his top speed, largely unbothered by the fact that his companions would be hard-pressed to catch up. He didn’t need them either way. Or, at the very least, he didn’t want their assistance. The reason he had asked them to come with was pragmatism mixed in with the last semblance of common sense, because he had to be prepared in case the perpetrators were actually powerful enough to overwhelm him, but at the same time he knew he was going to get into the fray no matter who they found to be responsible for the kidnapping.  
  
For the first time since his long-gone ANBU days, Kakashi was out for blood and the raw desire to kill was making his blood sing in morbid anticipation.  
  
“2 miles east, boss.”  
  
Kakashi nodded in response to Pakkun’s words and slowed down. It wouldn’t do to alter whoever was out there to his presence before he was ready to act. Sarada’s wellbeing was his main objective and he didn’t want to endanger her by rushing in without any plan whatsoever.  
  
Masking his chakra completely, Kakashi slipped into the foliage of the freshly bloomed trees and observed the group of ninja mingling around a small campsite. There was only ten or so of them, all unaffiliated as far as he could tell. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry or particularly afraid of capture, most likely because they were too sure of themselves to stay on the side of caution, which was usually a sign of cocky amateurs with overinflated egos rather than seasoned professionals. Thankfully, they were also idiots of the highest order, because Sarada was sitting on the ground in plain sight of anyone who cared to look. She was bound and gagged, and she was crying silently, her small frame shaking with sobs. There was an ugly bruise on her left cheek, probably left by the blow that broke her glasses, and she was covered in dirt as well as some minor abrasions.  
  
One of the men noticed her tears and told her to shut up. When she failed to obey, he rose from his seat near the fire and approached her with a raised hand, ready to strike. Kakashi flash-stepped from his hiding spot, all thoughts of planning an attack already forgotten, and caught the offending appendage a moment before it connected with its target.  
  
“I think not,” he said and then snapped the man’s wrist.  The sickening crack of breaking bones was followed shortly by the oaf’s yelp of undoubtedly excruciating pain. Naturally his shouts attracted the attention of everyone in the camp. Some of them seemed more eager to flee than to fight, but Kakashi didn’t give them time to decide. With a well-aimed and probably needlessly strong _Shiden_ all of the shinobi were on the ground like a swarm of dead flies, some of them occasionally twitching from the aftershock from the electrocution.  
  
Kakashi didn’t really care if they were dead or alive. All of his concern was focused on Sarada. He quickly did away with the ropes and the gag, and embraced her, feeling an irrational need to make sure that she was indeed still alive and relatively alright.  
  
“Shh, pup. I’m here. You’re safe now,” he murmured into her hair, his voice hitching slightly. As his anger subdued, he realized just how terrified he had been. The weight and warmth of the little body pressed snugly against his chest did wonders to alleviate his fear, but he couldn’t help thinking about the multitude of what-ifs and could-have-beens.  
  
Some of his friends have inquired over the last few months if the girl’s parentage bothered him sometimes, but Kakashi could never quite understand why they felt the need to ask him such asinine questions in the first place. Of course it didn’t matter. As far as he was concerned, Sarada was his daughter, blood be damned. He loved her to hell and back, and the mere thought of losing her like he almost did today made him nauseous.  
  
“Daddy!”  
  
The broken wail made his heart skip a beat for the second time that day, but this time it was not out of fright, but rather from an unexpected and overwhelming sense of joy.  
  
Although he was the only father figure in Sarada’s life and her adoptive parent to boot, she has never before called him anything other than some variation of his name. He had told her it was alright if she wanted to refer to him as otou-san, but her only response at the time was a hesitant nod and a shy smile. The child was unused to the idea of having a father, since she couldn’t even remember Sasuke, so Kakashi understood why she continued with the Kaka-jiji business as if their conversation never happened and he was fine with it.  
  
Still, the blatant acknowledgement of his role in her life, coupled with the affection behind the term she actually chose to use, was something he has never dared to dream about. He hugged her a bit tighter and she responded by burying her head in the crook of his neck, her small chubby fingers fisted in the material of his flak jacket.  
  
Before long they were no longer alone. He felt more than saw as his back-up team approached them, followed closely by the pack. When he glanced at them, he immediately noticed Yamato’s bemused expression, but both Sai and Naruto just went to work securing the perimeter and those prisoners who were still alive without any outward reaction to the carnage Kakashi’s jutsu managed to wreck, as if they were expecting nothing else from the beginning. The dogs simply surrounded Kakashi and Sarada, offering comfort and a sense of security.  
  
“I’m taking her home,” he informed Yamato. “Make sure you three take everything with you when you head back. We need to get to the bottom of this.”  
  
“Of course,” Yamato said with a nod before he turned around and he joined Sai and Naruto, who were sealing one of the two tents into a scroll.  
  
Without another word or a backward glance, Kakashi took off in the direction of Konoha, his thoughts already back home, where he would cuddle with his wife and daughter until they could all feel safe again.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find the artwork that demanded to be written about (aka the inspo for this story) in the ART section on my tumblr (lossie92) :)


End file.
